tyre weights...are these important?

[joko]

reecntly someone changed my tyre, an for some reason when i drove off there was a 'ffft' noise at intervals coming from the tyre, as though something was catching on the rim or something

i spoke to the bloke who changed it and he said 'they'd' (last time the wheel was fixed) put the weights in the wrong place and knocked them off...
noise is gone and he said it was fine without the weights but if i started to do hight speeds i may start to notice the weights werent there...

when he looked at the car for another reason a week later, i suggested he put the old tyre back on...as the weights would be correctly positioned...but he said the tyre had no weights on at all

i know nothing about tyre weights an which tyre have them or dont

what do i do ? do i need to get them weighted?

i will be heading up the motorway soon so i obviously dont want to have any probs

thanks

[catweasle]

last time i had a wheel ballanced it was a quick job and cost less than a tenner, it cured my vans wobbly wheel.

[ELVIS68]

I think it`s got got something to do with the tracking and balancing of the wheels

I`m no petrolhead but that`s my theory

[ELVIS68]

got got?

[Buenchico]

The tyres don't have weights, per se. They're placed on the wheel>/i>, like this:
http://www.kwik-fit.com/assets/jpg/graphics/wh eel-weight.jpg

The purpose is take account of 'heavy spots' in the tyre's construction. In my opinion, any tyre fitter who doesn't understand the importance of wheel balancing should be given a very wide berth!
http://www.ctyres.co.uk/tyre_info/wheel_balanc ing.html

Chris

[Buenchico]

Oops!

Sorry about all of the italics!

I really must learn to check my HTML before posting ;-)

[ChuckFickens]

what a load of ****

get yourself to a decent tyre place

The weights are put on the wheel to compensate for slight weight imbalances in the tyres, so the last person to change the tyre did not put them in the wrong place... they probably put them in the correct place for that tyre., when the tyre is changed the weights need to be removed, the wheel and tyre is spun at speed on a machine and new weights are put on to compensate for the new tyres weight imbalances.

PMSL at he suggested the old tyre was put back on as well.... if the old tyre was OK and could be put back on why was it changed in the first place!!! (and unless it was put back at excatly the correct position on the rim the weights would still be in the wrong place!!)

Are you taking your car to "pikeys R us" to get the tyres changed?

[tamborine]

Look for ATS tyre place near you.....they're reliable & honest.

[R1Geezer]

Yes, as above sounds like you've had some clueless numpty do your tyre. They must remove the old weights change the tyre, put it on the balancer and add the new ones where appropriate.